Although empirical studies comparing neophobia in wild and laboratory rats have been conducted in the past, a few decades have passed since most of them were completed. This is a substantial period of time in the case of fast-breeding animals such as rats. Equally important are the inconsistencies in research findings with respect to comparisons between wild and laboratory rats, and within dome...

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to examine whether the processing of food pictures is selectively modulated by changes in the motivational state of the observer. Sixteen healthy male volunteers were tested twice 1 week apart, either after 24 hr of food deprivation or after normal food intake. ERPs were measured while participants viewed appetitive food pictures as well as standa...

This paper presents three different hunger indicators and outlines how they can be used to assess the extent of food insecurity in population groups globally and within countries at community, regional, or other subnational levels. Hunger refers to the supply, access, consumption, and intake of food at levels that are insufficient to fulfill human requirements. If the requirements are not met t...

Competitive fighting was obtained in pairs of like-sexed laboratory rats by placing a single piece of food into the food hopper following 48 hr. of food deprivation. The fighting was characterized by offensive sideways posture, full aggressive posture, and bite and kick attack. Tests were conducted at 110-120 days of age on pairs of animals that had been housed together since weaning. Fighting ...

When a reinforcement is delivered according to a fixed-ratio schedule, it has been found that responding occurs in a specific temporal pattern (Ferster & Skinner, 1957). Periods of no responding characteristically follow the delivery of the reinforcer. Once responding begins, it assumes a very high rate of several responses per second. The resulting performance is bivalued; responding occurs ei...

Sleep deprivation alters food consumption in animals; however, little is known of the effects of partial sleep deprivation on food consumption and choice in humans. We examined 50 undergraduate students who recorded sleep quality, food consumption, and food choice in daily diaries for four days. On the second night of the study, participants were instructed to sleep for 4 h or less, which serve...

Obesity has become a true pandemic. In the United States, over two thirds of adults are obese or overweight. The prevalence of obesity has doubled since 1980. The increase in the prevalence of obese and overweight individuals has happened too rapidly for it to be due to an alteration in the genome. The gastrointestinal, sensory (taste and olfaction), and brain feeding mechanisms that developed ...

Food deprivation stimulates foraging and hoarding and to a much lesser extent, food intake in Siberian hamsters. Leptin, the anorexigenic hormone secreted primarily from adipocytes, may act in the periphery, the brain, or both to inhibit these ingestive behaviors. Therefore, we tested whether leptin given either intracerebroventricularly or intraperitoneally, would block food deprivation-induce...

introduction: based on human studies, inequality and social injustice have adverse effects on the individual and community health. in this study, the effects of food intake inequality and social status changes on pain perception and immunological factors were investigated in balb/c mice. methods: the present study was conducted by implementing different social stresses including food deprivatio...

It is important for animals to adapt to changes in food availability in order to survive. Hoarding is one method ofaccomplishing this and the golden hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) is particularly adept at hoarding. Previous literature suggests a connection between hoarding and stress. To further examine this connection, the present study looked at the effects of illumination and food deprivatio...